It’s tough being in a sticky situation and having to make a hard decision. A lot of the time when making a choice, we are angry at the idea of having to make that decision. Is it possible that anger helps us make the decision? Perhaps anger helps us make the better decision?
Professors at University of California, Santa Barbara challenged old science experiments that said angry people are less analytical and found out that anger aid in positive decision making. They conducted a study based on analytical reasoning. Two groups were formed; one was angry and one was not. Both groups were told to write essays on a problem and a solution and the angry group was more successful in the end. The test proved the researchers hypothesis true.
How does being angry help make a better decision though? It seems that angry people disregard information that is irrelevant to the topic on their mind. The non-angry people keep irrelevant preferences in the back of their mind. Anger is seen as a motivator of analytical thinking now, instead of a barrier. Anger demands response. Whether the response is harmful, violent or promising, a response is still given.
Anger helps clear the mind of all unnecessary thoughts and distractions. It only makes sense that anger would help one make a better decision.
Work Cited
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/anger-decision2.htm
I found this blog interesting and it made me think of many times I have made decisions while angry. Might I add, they tend to not be such great decisions.. Often when someone’s emotions are involved, decisions are made out of impulse. This website I found describes it as a disorder when it happens frequently. You can read more about it here: http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=476
While I think this topic is interesting, I’m not completely sold on the fact anger helps us make decisions. The statement “the test proved the researchers hypothesis true” was too vague to convince me, and I would be curious to see how the test proved the hypothesis true. There are many confounding variables that make this study difficult for me to believe: how were the people made angry, did they fact they were not inherently angry effect how they reacted, were all people given the same problem? I’d need to see more information on this before I believed it’s validity.
I definitely agree with you. I’ve had countless times where I was about to make a decision when i was angry but I stepped back and looking back on it I was going to make a poor decision due to my anger.
I think that every person on this planet reacts differently in different situations but it is quite easy to say that when we are angry we tend to make stupid decisions. People get angry and act much more irrationally when dealing with issues. It’s an interesting concept but the easiest way to make a good decision is to remain calm and not to get angry.
Very interesting article, but when you are angry i feel like you also make decision faster. Cant that lead to bad decision making? I know that when I get angry i might not always make the best choices or at least regret them at the end of the day. I do agree with the fact that when you are angry you are not thinking about irrelevant topics though.
I think that this topic is very interesting to think about. We all tend to get angry sometimes so it is interesting to see how this effects our decision making. However, I think that there could also be a lot of room for error in this study. I found an that explains how different emotions can effect decision making.